Isolation reconciliation may be possible

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/04/2020 (1989 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: On the brink of a split-up, my husband and I found ourselves captive at home due to COVID-19. It was a shock having to be 24-7 in the face of the person you can’t understand anymore or even talk to without fighting.

So, I started to talk to him a little, after a week of cooking our own meals and passing in the halls, with “yup,” “nope,” and “maybe” as only the answers to questions. We’d already been sleeping in separate bedrooms for months.

On the fourth day, I went for a walk. When I came back, he had all the alcohol in the house out on the kitchen table. He was already into it, and quite jovial. “Hey, sit down, have a drink!” he said. “We can’t get away from each other, so we might as well get drunk. Haha.”

Uh-oh. I sat down carefully and had a tentative drink of something he’d whipped up in the blender, clearly for me. It was good — too good — and pretty soon I was bombed too!

“So, why are we breaking up?” he asked, as he crossed the kitchen, with the boldness of a drunk. I lost my polite veneer!

I stood up, and easily ticked off a dozen reasons. Then he stopped me, by yelling “MY TURN!” and blurted out his own laundry list of complaints.

It was absurd, but oddly enough, we both felt a lot better — and we were very tipsy. Then he said, toasting and smiling, “But you’re still cute!” I lost it and laughed, he started pulling off his shirt, and I’ll let you guess where this ended up.

We used to have a great sexual attraction, and, for some weird reason, it was back.

Since we may be stuck here for a long time, we moved back into the same bedroom. We put our problems on a list, and we’re trying to work them out. We did love each other a lot when we got married nine years ago, but it disintegrated with both of us being workaholics with different sleep schedules and big new careers.

We even forgot to have a baby, and now we’re in our early 30s. Being forced to stay home may end up a good thing for us.

Seriously speaking, do you have any suggestions for two people who seem to have grown in totally opposite directions but still have feelings and attraction underneath?— Close Again, But So Different, Sage Creek

Dear Close But Different: You two graduated and may have gone from simply training for careers, to totally falling in love with them. Workaholics often give their best to their workplace, while their partners get what’s left over.

And, if you’re on different sleeping schedules, tell me when is there time for love, sex and intimate talks? Little problems snowball into big ones and nobody has the time to deal with them. You’re just too tired and fall into the nearest bed, not necessarily the same one.

Even if your careers are totally different, sharing what’s going on is the key to staying close. Otherwise, your partner will just bond with people at work.

If work becomes the enemy to a couple’s relationship, both partners learn how to clam up about it. You and your husband need to learn to “catch each other up” on the important points of the last nine years of work.

Then you need to re-learn how to socialize together by making dinners for each other, talking, telling jokes, watching movies, and (once COVID-19 social distancing is behind us) going to parties or dinner with other couples will help regain your sense of fun together.

There are lots of couples who come from different work worlds. Successful mates are amused by the many things they don’t understand about their partner’s work, but not threatened by it.

 

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6.